Richard Price is a writer’s writer, with novels that include The Wanderers, Clockers, Freedomland, and Lush Life. He’s also collaborated on such landmark television series as HBO’s The Wire, The Night Of, The Deuce, and The Outsider. Hear him talk with Kevin Burke about how New York City is better understood as a series of hometowns and how growing up in the Bronx shaped him as a writer of human drama and dialogue in stories set in the gritty landscapes of urban America.

 

Your Hometown is a show where the local is the epic. Visit yourhometown.org to subscribe to the podcast and our various social media channels.

 

Our co-presenter this season is the Museum of the City of New York. For more, including information on live events, check out our NYC series page at mcny.org/yourhometown-podcast.

 

Show Notes

 

Poem

Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Part 52, Leaves of Grass (1855)

 

“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

 

“You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.

 

“Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

 

Read

Richard Price, The Wanderers, Clockers, Freedomland, Lush Life

 

Watch

The Wire, The Night Of, The Deuce, The Outsider

 

Special thanks

Lorraine Adams